Study: U.S. employment gains since 2000 have all gone to illegal and legal immigrants

View full sizeDetainees are escorted to an area to make phone calls as hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Nogales, Ariz.Ross D. Franklin

Sessions, a critic of liberal immigration policy, said the report proves policies such as "amnesty" for illegal aliens is bad medicine for the economy.

"The findings in this report are shocking, and represent a dramatic indictment of immigration policy in Washington D.C.," Sessions said in a statement. "This report also underscores the economic catastrophe that would have ensued had the Gang of Eight's legislation, passed in the Senate one year ago today, been moved through the House and signed into law. Not only did the Gang of Eight plan provide amnesty to illegal workers (and help entice a new wave of illegal immigration), but it surged the rate of new low-skilled immigration at a time of low wages and high unemployment. Such a proposal would have hollowed out the middle class."

The report is bound to cause ripples in Washington, where the Republicans and Democrats have feuded with each other for years about what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

The CIS report says the number of U.S.-born working-age adults who are not working grew by 17 million since 2000.

Sessions says that's a problem compounded by the fact the number of immigrant workers with jobs increased 5.7 million, from 17.1 million in 2000 to 22.8 million in 2014.

The report suggests both legal and illegal immigrants have pushed U.S.-born workers out of the workplace since 2000.

Sessions says the solution is to slow down immigration to allow assimilation.

But reaction was harsher in the activist realm. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the report indicates there is no border security along the southwestern United States, and illegal immigrants easily arrive to get into the U.S. job market.